A Brief Overview of the Current Employment Statistics (CES) Program
by: Carol Kjar, Senior Statistician, Research & Planning, and Teresa Woods, Financial/Statistical Technician, Administrative Services & Operations

T he Research & Planning Section (R&P) of the Department of Employment is responsible for gathering labor market information from employers across the state. In response to many phone calls from employers, this article addresses the questions of why we ask for data about their businesses and employees and what is done with the information requested by the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey. In short, the information is needed to track the economic and labor market conditions and project where future growth or decline might occur in this state and across the nation.

CES is a State-Federal cooperative effort in which each state’s labor market information (LMI) office collects monthly employment and earnings data from employers (see Wyoming Nonagricultural Wage and Salary Employment for CES employment data for all industries). The survey uses concepts, definitions, and technical procedures established by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). A selected sample of the state’s businesses are contacted for employment figures which are used to produce monthly estimates of employment by industry. CES data on employment, hours, and earnings are the most current information available to the public and our policy makers. The data give an early indication of how Wyoming’s economy is performing.

BLS is revising the CES to a probability-based survey in which businesses are randomly chosen from the Unemployment Insurance records. The redesign will include more information about new business formations and business failures. The CES sample will be updated annually with the redrawing of the entire sample during the first quarter of each year;¹ however, large businesses are almost guaranteed to be asked to participate in the redesigned CES survey.²  

Each month, CES collects data from employers concerning the pay period that includes the 12th of that month. The forms take a short amount of time to complete and are self explanatory, with instructions indicating what information to include or exclude (see front of form and back of form). A listing of various codes on the back of the form helps explain any fluctuations in employment or pay. The forms are industry specific and ask for counts of total employees, women employees, non-supervisory employees, non-supervisory payroll and non-supervisory hours for that specific pay period.

Various methods are used in the collection of the requested information. The most widely used method is Touchtone Data Entry (TDE). The employer simply phones the data to a toll free number on an automated phone system which collects the information. Mailing is another method of collection. The surveys are mailed to R&P in a postage paid envelope, data are entered into the database manually and the form is sent back to the employer with another return envelope for the next month.

CES data are consolidated after collection and used to estimate the current month’s employment for the state. Consolidation removes the data from the individual sources so no business names are revealed. The sources of the information are held in strictest confidence and only the employment estimates are reported.

Previous months’ CES data are used to refine the employment estimations. The estimates are adjusted annually to a complete count of jobs using the Unemployment Insurance records. This adjustment is called benchmarking. It establishes the level of employment which is used in comparing monthly changes occurring after the benchmark date. The employment data are forwarded to BLS for further analysis and for comparison on a national basis. BLS releases nationally compiled CES data on the first Friday of each month.

Research & Planning publishes Wyoming CES data in Wyoming Labor Force Trends every month with less than one month lag time. Monthly and yearly changes are given for comparison purposes. Laramie and Natrona Counties’ data are shown because they comprise the state’s two Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). R&P also uses CES data in various types of research. For example, Outlook 2000: Joint Economic & Demographic Forecast to 2008, a joint research project by R&P and the Economic Analysis Division of the Wyoming Department of Administration and Information, used industry details found in CES data to forecast industrial and occupational growth and decline. By tracking employment over time and looking for patterns, reasonably accurate predictions are made.

The data that businesses provide in the CES survey are a valuable resource to the state. Because of the early collection and release of information from the CES survey, it is heavily used by decision makers in both the private and public sectors. Legislators and policy makers keep close tabs on the fluctuations in employment totals to track economic changes and trends. This information is used to project the growth or decline of industries, forecast tax revenues, facilitate urban planning, and evaluate the general economic health of our state.

1 CES Redesign, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Updated June 2000, (August 1, 2000).

2 George Werking, Overview of the CES Redesign, 1997, American Statistical Association, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 18, 1998, (August 1, 2000).

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